Today I am grateful to have woken up with the moon. I got up about 5AM and as I sat in my office getting ready to work, the sun started coming up. I initially hadn’t seen the moon in the dark–the placement in my office is a bit different–but as the sun came up around 5:45AM, I saw the orange ball of the moon through the trees. Light in the dark and an ever-present quiet power. She still looked pretty full from Friday, hanging low. I love those moments when I am clearly reminded I am a part of nature, and also powerful, but just a piece here. It makes me feel less like I have to control everything around me and that I can simply BE. I am grateful to remember that powerful place and to honor where I am.

Today I am grateful for standing in my own.  I’ve found a piece of myself that I’ve truly missed.  I have been so tired of feeling guilty for the way I live that I had been rejecting the very things I wanted in my life.  I’m hypersensitive to other people’s feelings and emotions and I’ve tailored my life to be just right for everyone out of fear of being rejected.  I also have a pretty cool talent of seeing the middle ground between parties, so it came naturally to try and maintain a sort of neutrality.  It made my whole life bland and neutral and highly stressful—and also sad for the things I wanted and turned down for the sake of others and thinking I didn’t deserve it.  There were some comments made in our group last night and I kept quiet, not because I felt guilty or tried to be neutral, but because I knew I wasn’t in the wrong.  There was nothing to feel guilty for and I wasn’t going to let it ruin my evening.  Small steps turn into big leaps.

Today I am grateful for fun. It’s amazing how quickly I fall into the trap of taking life seriously.  We all do it.  I know there are, naturally, things that need to be taken seriously—that is the nature of life.  But we aren’t meant to go through life taking every single thing as life or death.  The body simply can’t handle that kind of stress.  My brain tends to go, “Why not?  You never know if THIS could be it?!  COULD THIS BE IT?!”  I need reminders often to have fun.  I’m driven toward “the point” and often miss the point of the journey.  We were with our friends last evening having a fire in the fire pit (something we haven’t done in over a year) and I felt so compelled to sing and dance and move my body and that is what I did.  For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel a trace of self-consciousness and I just opened up to what was happening.  There was a brief rain shower and my son is terrified of storms (anything with rain is a storm to him) so, under cover of the deck, I kept dancing with him.  It amazes me how freeing it can be to just do what the body wants and to feel the moment.  What a gift.

Today I am grateful for revelations.  I shared last week about some epiphanies I had at work.  I want to talk about the freedom that has given.  I’m not going to exaggerate and say the stress is gone (far from it), but I want to express how freeing it is to see the truth of someone after holding an opinion.  We NEVER know what someone is really thinking or feeling and we have to either rely on what they tell us or we have to wait for the moment the truth is revealed.  I’m not seeking out the “Gotcha!” moments, but when they happen, the puzzle sort of falls into place.  When you know information, actual facts, you move differently.  I feel grateful to see where I stand, what my options are, and knowing that I can let go of the stress I’ve been carrying around a specific situation.  There is no point in holding onto something like that, and talk about keeping grounded and present.  It’s nice to live firm instead of in the land of projection and speculation.  I’m grateful for any insight I can get. 

Today I am grateful for song.  When I was a kid, I used to sing with my mom and dad all the time.  It didn’t matter what it was, both of my parents had a strong love of music—even my grandmother loved music and used to sing as well now that I think about it.  My siblings loved music…ok, I mean who doesn’t love music?  Regardless, it was always something we did.  I even sang with choir in school.  Even if my skills aren’t that strong, I still love to sing—I’m an absolute rock star in the car or in the bathroom.  With the stress I’ve felt for a while, I’ve been kind of quiet.  I had some time alone yesterday while my son and husband went fishing and I belted my heart out.  I sang until I cried, I felt every note that moved through my body (this was even before we went out where I continued singing—friends, you’re welcome 😊).  But the truth is, singing absolutely moved energy for me, I felt my body open up.  Music is the highest form of expression and I completely expressed myself.  It wasn’t about being good, it was about flow.  It felt like every stagnant piece of me moved.  Never lose your joy to the point you can’t sing.  I am so grateful for song.   

Today I am grateful for humor.  Another remedy for taking life seriously.  I understand now that life is hard enough and that we truly just need to be who we are.  We need to allow life to happen with grace and humility and love, and we need to be there for each other.  There are moments that knock us down, the curveballs, the tragedies, the unexpected.  But there is beauty there, every day, there is beauty to be found.  Jen Pastiloff calls it beauty hunting.  Something remarkably beautiful is humor.  We try to force things to be a certain way and make them beautiful, but humor looks at what is and appreciates it while understanding there is something beyond our control.  A good laugh can open possibilities, it creates flow, it stimulates life.  Sometimes we aren’t falling, we are learning to gain different footing, and understanding that is how we learn to dance is key.  That is when we can see the humor.  We all move in different ways.  Laugh at ourselves and remember it’s all part of the dance.

Today I am grateful for presence and the difference it makes on fear, adaptability, and love.  I get stressed on some evenings when my husband and I are trying to have an adult night and we have my son.  Our friends are always accommodating and everyone loves playing with him—we are truly fortunate with both our child and the group of people we have surrounding us.  But I always felt the need to be hypervigilant with him and make sure he didn’t do anything to upset anyone.  That got old after a while and there were some evenings I just wanted my husband to take over so I could associate with my friends without “momming” for an evening.  Last night as we hung out, I felt this balance of energy for him with my friends and I played with him, we danced together, and we cuddled and it was all because I was in the moment.  We aren’t meant to control others, certainly not our children.  Letting go felt amazing and I could see my son relax as I relaxed into the presence of where we were. We knew where we were and we simply WERE together.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.